The Commonwealth Bank is a good case study of how a business can undermine its own advertising and marketing strategies. In late January the Bank announced an expensive an ongoing campaign around the message 'determined to different'. According to the media release for that campaign:
Central to the Bank’s new advertising direction is a mantra that the Bank and its staff will adopt as it strives to become Australia’s finest financial services organisation through excelling in customer service.
"’Determined to be different’ is a declaration that sums up the Bank’s new attitude that will set it apart from its competitors. It will ensure that the Bank puts the customer at the centre of everything it does by understanding their needs, then meeting and exceeding their expectations," said Barbara Chapman, Group Executive Human Resources and Group Services.
"The Bank has been changing internally to live up to our vision of excelling in customer service and this has been evidenced in the improvements in our customer satisfaction ratings. We believe that now is the right time to let our customers know that we are changing."
"This promise to our customers sets the standard we will be judged by. It’s a commitment to be innovative in our products and our service, today and tomorrow," Ms Chapman added.
Horrible bumpf isn't it? The TV ads are ridiculous, too.
Yesterday, the Commonwealth Bank announced an interest rate increase on loans of 0.35% but only 0.25% on deposits; the largest increase for borrowers
HOMEBUYERS with mortgages with the country's biggest bank yesterday faced the largest interest rate increase of the current cycle when the Commonwealth Bank raised its standard variable rate by 0.35 percentage points to 9.32 per cent.
The Commonwealth's move is 10 basis points higher than the 0.25-percentage-point rise in the official rate imposed by the Reserve Bank last week.
It raised the bank's mortgage rates above those of its competitors the National Australia Bank and Westpac, both of which went further than the Reserve, at 0.29 percentage points and 0.3 percentage points respectively.
So will customers remember the droll 'determined to be different' TV ads or the reality of a mortgage rate increase that exceeds those of its customers.
The slogan "determined to be different" sounds very ambiguous to me. Different doesn't necessarily imply better. The interest rate hike says it all really.
Posted by: kimbofo | 12 March 2008 at 04:33 AM